March 7th

You ever get that brain-feel of having approximately fifty tabs that are open at the same time? Our minds can easily become full of choices about what we should have done differently or should have done better in the future and then of worrying about whether other people are judging us or not. Suppose, however, that your mind was really merely constructed to perform a few special functions?

In The Daily Stoic, we receive a superb quote of wisdom by the ancient philosopher, Epictetus. His reasoning was that the mind actually has seven primordial functions. When your brain is engaged in any other activity other than this list, you are not actually thinking, you are merely inciting your brain with mind clutter.

The way your mind should be focused are these seven things:

1. Action: Making the decision to do the right thing and reason well at the current point of time.
2. Refusal: Sqolcathing no to bad habits, distractions, enticements, and all these amenities that keep you out of track.
3. Desire: A healthy desire to develop, become better, and a more improved self.
4. Repulsion: Vividly moving negative, poisonous, and things you will know are not the truth away.
5. Preparation: Shaping your mind and life, in general, to accept what this life can deal with.
6. Purpose: The knowledge of your fundamentals why. Having your most important objectives and the principles to follow always in mind.
7. Assent: It is taking reality as it is. This is not being false to self as to what you can actually control, but freely letting go of that which you cannot.

The Takeaway:
That’s it. It is all you need to do and this is your brain.

Notice what isn’t on the list? There is no need to care about whether your neighbor thinks you are a good person or not. It is not about suffering because of a humiliating error you have committed five years ago. It is not scrolling and scrolling due to boredom.

Epictetus referred to the added stuff as pollution. We tend to get stuck when we are subjecting our minds to do something they had not been designed to do.

The next time you get overwhelmed, go through this seven-point checklist in running your thoughts. Any thought in mind that cannot fall into any of these classifications should be dropped. It’s just clutter.